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trixtahSo one of my units, which I start on MONDAY (argh, how did that happen?) is on Organisational Behaviour. I read the first chapter of the prescribed text, which looked at a whole bunch of organisational configurations and theories, and in passing announced that hierarchies are "here to stay" and in fact remain the 'best available mechanism for doing complex work'. That last quote comes from an article by Henry Leavitt in the Harvard Business Review, which of course I had to read. It seems fairly even-handed, except for the aforementioned conclusion, but this section on some of the benefits of heirarchies cracked me up.
So, who's the boss and the subordinate in this scenario, eh? Since the goats are directing the work, obviously they're the bosses! ;-)
So, yeah, structure does not necessarily = hierarchy (and I get tired of people who should know better confusing the two). *snortle*
Moving along to the wider question, I think hierarchies are a convenient and accustomed way of assigning roles and accountabilities, but I don't actually think that those assignments need to be done in a top-down manner (I can't help my anarchist tendencies). Foucault talks about "governmentality", which can apply to the application of power in many ways (including self-regulation), but he makes a distinction between that and domination. And I'll wank on about an alternative organisational model some other time, I think. I've already decided on my essay topic for this course!
The first chapter in my text talks about how organisations are pretty much always arranged in a hierarchical fashion, even though there have been recent efforts to flatten structures and work across them in recent times. There is also a discussion about the difficulties of contract management when "alliances" are made between organisations to work together in the delivery of a larger project (such as public-private partnerships for public works - feh - or entirely private projects, such as building a new football stadium) . Now, in that kind of area, who is the boss and who is the subordinate? The simple answer is that there are none. There are contacts and there should be deliverables/KPIs to describe what outputs are required of each party in order to complete the projects. While there might be a co-ordinating body or final customer, they aren't the "boss" of the project in terms of directing the actual work. However, roles and accountabilities must be clearly stated in the contracts, with redress if there are failures to perform.
I don't see why these concepts are so difficult to extend to a more micro level. My team at work needs to deliver certain things, like email services and application maintenance. Our point of contact is our team leader. While she is our supervisor, in reality there is no reason that performance metrics could not be maintained within the team, and she just carry out the role of co-ordination and communication. If we, on a team or individual basis, fail to perform what we have agreed to do, given the appropriate resources, then fine, time to do some serious renegotiation or do something else. Well, that may be pie in the sky, but it's an area that interests me. I don't think devolution, with appropriate means of co-ordination, should necessarily mean a shambles, although of course that's the common fate of many co-operative ventures. So much so that the word "co-operative" almost epitomises shoddily-run and chaotic organisations, which I think is a shame.
Hierarchies add structure and regularity to our lives. They give us routines, duties, and responsibilities. We may not realize that we need such things until we lose them. One friend of mine, after he retired, took to keeping goats. "Why?" I asked him. "Because goats have to be milked regularly," he replied. "That gives me a reason to wake up every morning: Without required routines, we might find ourselves afloat in a sea of anomie."
So, who's the boss and the subordinate in this scenario, eh? Since the goats are directing the work, obviously they're the bosses! ;-)
So, yeah, structure does not necessarily = hierarchy (and I get tired of people who should know better confusing the two). *snortle*
Moving along to the wider question, I think hierarchies are a convenient and accustomed way of assigning roles and accountabilities, but I don't actually think that those assignments need to be done in a top-down manner (I can't help my anarchist tendencies). Foucault talks about "governmentality", which can apply to the application of power in many ways (including self-regulation), but he makes a distinction between that and domination. And I'll wank on about an alternative organisational model some other time, I think. I've already decided on my essay topic for this course!
The first chapter in my text talks about how organisations are pretty much always arranged in a hierarchical fashion, even though there have been recent efforts to flatten structures and work across them in recent times. There is also a discussion about the difficulties of contract management when "alliances" are made between organisations to work together in the delivery of a larger project (such as public-private partnerships for public works - feh - or entirely private projects, such as building a new football stadium) . Now, in that kind of area, who is the boss and who is the subordinate? The simple answer is that there are none. There are contacts and there should be deliverables/KPIs to describe what outputs are required of each party in order to complete the projects. While there might be a co-ordinating body or final customer, they aren't the "boss" of the project in terms of directing the actual work. However, roles and accountabilities must be clearly stated in the contracts, with redress if there are failures to perform.
I don't see why these concepts are so difficult to extend to a more micro level. My team at work needs to deliver certain things, like email services and application maintenance. Our point of contact is our team leader. While she is our supervisor, in reality there is no reason that performance metrics could not be maintained within the team, and she just carry out the role of co-ordination and communication. If we, on a team or individual basis, fail to perform what we have agreed to do, given the appropriate resources, then fine, time to do some serious renegotiation or do something else. Well, that may be pie in the sky, but it's an area that interests me. I don't think devolution, with appropriate means of co-ordination, should necessarily mean a shambles, although of course that's the common fate of many co-operative ventures. So much so that the word "co-operative" almost epitomises shoddily-run and chaotic organisations, which I think is a shame.